


there is a word which bears a sword

by Melkoring



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, HE JUST LOOKS GOOD IN ARMOUR OKAY LET ME LIVE MY LIFE, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, erestor is grumpy and glorfindel is pretty what's new, kind of a modern au at least??? i honestly just love glorfindel in pretty armour
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-24
Updated: 2018-06-03
Packaged: 2018-08-24 11:29:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8370517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melkoring/pseuds/Melkoring
Summary: When a person is born, they are born marked with the first words their soulmate will ever say to them. Erestor has spent his entire life hiding his, but is met with an untimely surprise when he begins a new job.Title from the poem 'There is a Word' by Emily Dickinson





	1. Chapter 1

They call them tattoos. They are wrong. They’re more like scars.

Letters that sear their skin, the acrid smell of burning flesh a constant reminder that their future is not theirs to see. Phrases like chains. Words like a brand. Humanity reduced to the animal under the ringmaster’s whip.

There is nothing that is not written. Nothing that will not be followed.

_Excuse me?_

Erestor runs a hand over his neck. He knows the words are covered, his penchant for high collars ensure that. He revels in the rumours that he is markless. Even those who take no interest in sex or romance have marks, someone they connect with over everyone else. But Erestor has a reputation to upkeep and even the idea of a soulmate - platonic, romantic, or whatever - would ruin that.

He hates the lot he has been given in life. _Despises it_.

 _Excuse me?_ He might as well be one of the poor souls with the word _hello_ etched into their skin. How many occasions call for that ludicrous phrase?

_Excuse me, could you pass the salt?_

_Excuse me, I need to get through._

_Excuse me, you’re looking lovely today._

It takes all Erestor has not to snort at that last one. People didn’t approach him saying such things. Not because he isn't attractive, but with his face permanently set in a scowl, it's hard for people to describe him as ‘lovely’.

And, just like any human, he’s not in the habit of dealing with his issues in a healthy manner. He has too much on his plate already.

He wonders briefly if that’s why he’s grown to be so caustic. With such ambiguity scored into his skin, anyone could have a hand on his heart. It’s been years since he smiled at someone who says the phrase to him, even longer since he’s said it himself. He walls himself off, a perimeter of stone around his heart, a mask of ice to ward off would-be’s. He can’t be too careful. He has too much to lose.

 _Excuse me?_ Are you fucking kidding me?

A gust of wind makes him tug his scarf tighter around his neck. With his collar pulled up so high, he can barely feel the cashmere against his throat, but it makes him feel safer. He hates the cold and the gloom of winter, hates the festivities that drive people insane and broke. But Erestor wears winter clothes like soldiers wear armour, his scarf a cloak, his scowl a sword.

Summer is hell in his collars, and he’s yet to figure out a better way to hide his birthmark. But, despite his hatred for it, it is winter where he truly thrives.

It dreads him to think he is almost at his destination. It meant radiators and lukewarm cups of tea, served with a faux-polite smile and a drop too much milk. Warm offices with cushioned seats. It meant taking off his scarf, and his coat, and turning down his collar.

It meant laying bare a portion of himself that Erestor wasn’t ready to share.

But it is a good job. His first day, in fact. It pays well, and it’s a job he has dreamed of for years now. The last thing to ruin it would be a goddamn _excuse me_.

A man meets him at the doorway, a great beast of ornately carved wood and wrought iron locks the size of his palm. He holds out his hand for his coat, a practiced smile on his lips.

Erestor ignores him and walks past him into the building.

He meets Elrond soon after, recognises his voice from the phone and his face from the backs of his books, all of which Erestor has read. He, too, has a mark. The words are ashy, like ink on vellum. Creased and bleached by time. _Well, are these the eyebrows my mother has told me so much about? And what a charming fellow attached_ crawl their way across both palms.

Elrond catches him and smiles. “You must be Erestor,” he says, excusing his stares. “I’ve read your essays. Very well written. It’s wonderful to finally meet you in person.”

“Charmed,” Erestor mutters, without much enthusiasm. But Elrond seems to recognise that the fact that he says it at all at least means something. He doesn’t take the hand that Elrond offers him, partly because he doesn’t like to shake hands, and partly because he’s worried what will happen - if anything will - if he touches the faded letters carved into Elrond’s hands. A mark like that usually spoke of a death.

Elrond nods with another smile. He takes a step back, giving Erestor his space. “Come,” he says, his hand hovering above - but not quite touching - Erestor’s elbow. “Let me give you a tour of the building.”

 

The tour is mostly uneventful. He meets some of the other inhabitants: Lindir, Melpomaen, other names he forgets to remember. He remembers his office, however, a glorious maze of empty bookshelves begging to be filled and a mahogany desk tucked into a comfortable nook just far enough away from the door that he just knows he won’t need to stand up to answer any knocks - they can let themselves into his future office if they want his time. Elrond nearly has to tear him away from it.

Before he realises it, the day is almost over, and Elrond is still laughing and chatting absentmindedly to him, spurred on by the occasional hum from Erestor.

Erestor is still thinking of his office - he has been all day - and he walks on ahead without realising that Elrond has stopped a few feet behind him.

“Mister Erestor.”

He blinks at the sound of his name. He turns around to find Elrond laughing with a towering, golden behemoth of a man.

Elrond beckons him over excitedly. Warily, he follows.

“I’d like you to meet Captain Glorfindel. I’m sure you’ll get along swimmingly.” He feels Elrond’s eyes on him, prompting him forward to greet him. Glorfindel has extended his hand, silver scars pockmarking the dark skin of his knuckles.

“I don’t shake hands, let alone with a military dog like that,” Erestor says. He brushes past him; at least, he does until a vice-like hand jerks him backwards. Captain Glorfindel’s hands aren’t as warm as they look.

There’s something guarded about his expression but anger quickly overtakes it. “ _Excuse me?_ ” Glorfindel hisses. Erestor finds himself being whirled around to face a beast in armour, not the cashmere and cotton that Erestor guards himself with but inlaid leather and silver with a sheen that Erestor can see his own sneer in.

 _Clearly this dog takes pride in his coat_ , Erestor thinks, and then those scarred knuckles connect with his nose.

It takes a moment for Erestor to blink away the spots of light that dance in his eyes. When he touches his nose, his fingers come back red.

Glorfindel’s mouth is set in a grimace that, given any other occasion, Erestor might have had some appreciation for. Were it not for his eyes trembling with rage, he could have been carved from stone.

“ _Excuse me?"_  he says again. “I’m going to give you a chance to apologise because I’m kind like that. You want to try that again, and speak to me as if I’m not, for example, an animal?”

His fingers dig into Erestor’s shoulder. Glorfindel’s voice echoes in his head, as unrelenting as a hurricane. The words on his neck begin to ignite, so hot, so bright, that he’s surprised it doesn’t burn a hole in his scarf.

He might have noticed it more were it not for the blood dripping down his chin. Soaking into the cashmere.

Erestor wipes the blood from his nose with the back of his hand; it’s near-invisible against the black of his sleeve. He opens his mouth, and then Elrond steps between them, glancing dangerously at them both.

“Captain,” he says. He doesn’t snap. He doesn’t shout. He speaks with a civility that only true authority can muster, a respect unworthy of them both. “Captain, you will apologise to Mister Erestor.”

It’s hard not to smile when Erestor spies a shudder that courses, for less than a second, through Glorfindel’s body, but it brings him to his full, impressive height, more than a head taller than Erestor could ever dream of.

“Forgive me,” he says after a moment, after inhaling a breath to steady his rage-wrecked body. There’s that look in his eyes again, the one that Erestor knows all too well from his own reflection: the captain is keeping something from them both. “I... perhaps acted rashly.”

“Perhaps,” Erestor begins to say, sleeve still pressed to his nose to stop the blood flow, but then Elrond holds up his hand.

“Now that this has been sorted out, would you not agree, Mister Erestor, that we must finalise it with a handshake?”

His eyes are harder than Erestor’s are, hard enough to beat him down. With visible reluctance, Erestor extends his hand.

Glorfindel’s is warm when he takes it, warmer than it was when piercing his shoulder. Not quite as warm as the words smouldering on his skin.

They don’t shake, so much as stare at each other with their hands clasped in loathing solidarity.

When they look back, Elrond is smiling at them both. He reaches up and touches Glorfindel’s elbow, and then he’s gone.

“ _Excuse me_ ,” Erestor says. He repeats. He whispers. The words feel alien on his tongue, it’s been so long since he’s said them. They leave a bitter taste in the back of his throat.

He stares up at the man who owns the voice that still reverberates in his head. The man with the voice, who spoke those very words that have seared his skin since the day he was born, stares back.

He sees Glorfindel’s fingers move subtly to his side - at first, Erestor is sure he is reaching for the hilt of his sword to run him through, but then they rest for just a moment on his hip.

“ _Military dog_ ,” he murmurs. It’s said with some familiarity, like he knows the words all too well. It’s followed by a scoff. It takes just one step of his long legs for him to stride past Erestor, his hair flying out behind him like a cape. Against his dark skin, the gold of his braid shines like the sun.

His hand is at his hip again, pressed tight as if he were swathing a wound.

Erestor touches his neck and watches him leave. There’s a rivulet of blood tetering on his lip, and he suspects his nose might be broken, but the pain is nothing compared to the blistering heat he feels tracing the letters on his neck.

“ _Excuse me."_

Erestor wipes the fresh blood from his face. He tightens the scarf around his neck.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erestor tests the boundaries of Glorfindel's temper; messes are inevitable.

It’s three weeks until Erestor next sees him, but his mark doesn’t cool. In fact, when Erestor is sat at his desk and that tempest of golden hair and silver armour barrage their way into his office, he feels his arrival as a flame on his neck long before Glorfindel can even cross the threshold.

He doesn’t even knock.

_ Barbarian _ .

“What the hell is this,” he snarls. A wad of paper, half-crumpled in silver-spotted hands, is shoved into his face.

Erestor tugs at his collar on instinct. The heat underneath is enough to set his face awash with a sheen of sweat. He ignores him, deciding instead to tilt his glasses down to the tip of his nose, purely for the purpose of letting Glorfindel get a good view of his glare. They’re only reading glasses, anyway. He doesn’t need them to see Glorfindel’s handsome features twist into a gnarled mockery of his former self, a lion’s roar before the pounce.

“And what might you be referring to this time?” he drawls. It’s almost embarrassing how much effort he puts into sounding like he doesn’t care - a necessary evil he’s formulated to try and assuage the words burning on his neck.

_ It’s not him. _ Erestor is sure of it. Captain Glorfindel must have been the hundredth, two hundredth, the millionth person to ever say the words  _ excuse me _ to him. If he was destined to spend eternity with every person who’d ever said that to him then he’d have a circle of friends spanning half the country.

Erestor looks up. He pushes his glasses back up his nose and takes a long moment to pretend to study the paper being shoved into his face.

“This looks like one of your reports,” he says, “if you can call it that.”

Glorfindel growls at him. He snatches the paper away before Erestor can get his hands on it, jabbing at words angrily. Underneath the stylish, whorling script, Erestor can recognise his own chicken-scratch.

“ _ This _ ,” Glorfindel hisses. The word is punctuated with another jab.

One more time, Erestor rearranges his glasses. Just so Glorfindel can sweat under the ice of his gaze. “Oh,” he says shortly. “That. I made some corrections.”

“On my  _ report? _ ”

“Yes,” Erestor says. “Trust me, it was necessary. Your grammar is appalling.”

The table shudders as though the tremors of an earthquake shake the entire building to its core, but it’s merely the cesspool of Glorfindel’s rage bubbling over. He shoves his hands down onto the table and Erestor jumps.

“ _ Necessary? _ ” he spits. “Appalling?!”

“Yes. You’re lucky I was so forgiving of you. I didn’t even mention your structure.”

Glorfindel slams his hands onto the table again. This time, Erestor makes an effort not to jump. “ _ You _ ,” he says, shoving a finger into Erestor’s chest, “you are  _ incorrigible _ .”

Erestor looks down at the finger on his chest. He spends a cold second staring at it, letting the silence saturate the air, before he removes it with his finger and his thumb. He makes Glorfindel watch as he then dusts off the front of his jumper.

“I’m surprised you know the meaning of the word.”

“You can’t just correct my official reports like some old and grouchy headmistress with a cane! This isn’t a fucking schoolyard!”

“For once, I agree with you,” Erestor sniffs, and quietly delights in the twinge of confusion that worms it's way between the lines of Glorfindel's expression. “I mean, judging from your penmanship, it’s transparently clear that you have never set foot in a school before.”

This time he manages to dodge the fist that rushes towards his face.

“I see your aim has deteriorated since last time,” Erestor says, and then regrets it instantly as his thin body is plucked from his chair and slammed into the nearest wall. His breath is torn from his lungs as a hand reaches for his throat.

“Why are you intent on antagonising me.” The words are hissed through clenched teeth, ones that decades ago might have been as straight as a set of beautifully tuned piano keys but one too many fights have since left them a tad crooked. They are still as white as the ivory, however, and they flash behind snarling, curling lips.

With his face pressed this close to Glorfindel’s, Erestor can recognise a spattering of freckles littering his cheeks, a myriad of constellations that shine bright against his dark skin. There’s too much emotion in him for Erestor to compare him to a Grecian statue - the ones that stand frozen in museums across the world, faces stark, no blood coursing through their stone bodies but who are given life in the veins that stripe the marble regardless.

In fact, Erestor can’t compare him to any piece of art. He’s a masterpiece in himself, all harsh bones and freckles like stars, hair as golden as the petals of a laburnum with the poison in eyes to match.

And it’s all just for him.

He knows it.

Every single person Erestor has spoken to -  _ every single one _ \- has lavished on Captain Glorfindel, waxing poetic about his nobleness, clamouring over his kindness. There doesn’t seem to be a single person who has not fallen in love with him. It’s only Erestor that gets to see the king lose his crown.

Following the scare of their first meeting, Erestor has made it his mission to lock himself away more than usual. He will be the last person to crawl on his knees for this military dog.

All his life has been the same, after all: it's so much easier to hate something - or _someone_ \- than come to terms with it. He was so rarely lazy, but even Erestor had his exceptions.

It was the same reason he didn’t eat broccoli.

“Your temper really is something to behold, Captain,” Erestor says. “I suppose it’s not often you don’t get your way.”

It’s when Glorfindel’s fingers close over his throat, slipping under his collar to get a good grip on the pale skin beneath, that Erestor realises his mistake. The tips of his fingers brush the letters on Erestor’s neck and instinct has him kicking out. He’s never been in a fight before - he’s been punched often enough, but he’s never fought back. More often than not he deserves it.

“ _ Don’t fucking touch me like that _ ,” Erestor hisses. He squirms in Glorfindel’s iron grip, gaining just enough leverage to push Glorfindel away with his feet against his armoured chest, not unlike the way he’s seen Olympic swimmers push off against the side of a pool. Except they weren’t trying to escape two hundred pounds of angry military muscle.

Glorfindel, startled, lets go. Erestor drops back into his chair, a wayward elbow knocking a bottle of ink across his treasured desk.

It takes a moment for Erestor to notice, but the second that he does is not a pretty one.

“My  _ desk _ !” Quickly, he scrambles to save whatever he can from the flood of ink beginning to crawl across his papers and books, the expensive vermillion ink turning nearly indigo where it soaks the black cashmere of his jumper.

Glorfindel’s face looks conflicted. Not quite apologetic, but softened enough to look somewhat sheepish, at the very least, and still shadowed by a touch of anger. There’s clearly curses on his lips, but he reigns them back as best he can, and reaches instead to rescue a pile of dog-eared notebooks from the desk.

As though waking up from some trance, Erestor immediately whips around to wrench them from his hands. “Don’t touch those. Don’t touch anything. It’ll take me weeks to redo all of this.”

Glorfindel starts to apologise (out of necessity more than anything else, he thinks) but finds himself cut off once again. 

“ _ Get out _ . Just get out! I don’t care about your fucking reports, or your temper tantrums, or anything about you. Get out of my office and don’t come back.”

Erestor closes his eyes, his books still clutched to his chest and the knowledge that he brought this upon himself a weight upon his brow. When he opens them again, Glorfindel is gone. The only evidence of him ever having stood there was a trail of colourful, half-formed footprints where the ink had dripped down his precious mahogany and soaked into the sole of one of Glorfindel’s boots.

This is his own doing. Erestor is too smart not to realise this little fact, but even smarter - or, more likely, stupider - to not admit this. 

With a heavy heart, he picks mournfully at the rest of the papers that line his desk and is discouraged to find most of them completely ruined. Even the ones with the merest stain on them still look messy and unprofessional enough to be classed as ‘unusable’ by Erestor’s perfecting eye.

Contrary to what most of Elrond’s employees think of him so far, he is not some desk jockey that gets off on by-the-book rules and official documents. In fact, he loathes them.

The simple fact of the matter is just that Erestor prefers paperwork to smalltalk, and would happily tell his new co-workers this should they ever suggest otherwise. As of yet, none of them have, most likely due to the fact that he  _ would _ tell them this if they ever did try to speak to him more than once.

It was a delicate ecosystem that nobody wanted to disrupt; even if it meant being labelled as some humdrum pencil-pusher.

An ecosystem which clearly a certain captain thought he was the predator in.

And that means that Erestor is nothing if not prey. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so I wrote some more of this !! I promised to ages ago, and finally got around to it. I was going to make this chapter a second part, since the first part was just a one shot, but I don't know how to do that because I'm awful with technology.
> 
> Anyway, I love angry Glorfindel.


	3. Chapter 3

“Erestor.”

The way Elrond says his name reminds him of his father. He was a clean cut, stoic man that offered his words sparingly, and his affection even less so. Despite this, he was well-respected by all that had the honour of snapping up a few of his rare sentences, and his death was mourned for by more than just the small circle of his family.

Erestor didn’t particularly get along with him. He wasn't sure if it was because what his father excelled in diplomacy, he lacked in fatherhood, or because Erestor was jealous: either way, his father’s death had not been a particularly emotional affair.

Maybe he wishes they had talked a little more. Or talked at all.

Elrond, however, is good at talking, and Erestor appreciates this. He talks openly, through a wizened smile that he is never seen without, and doesn't seem to mind that Erestor often doesn’t respond. His voice had the candor or a fireplace in winter, unapologetic and warm, and begging to be basked in.

Even when angry, Erestor had the feeling that he had not upset Elrond; just disappointed him.

“I know you are new here, so I am inclined to give you a little more leeway in such matters,” Elrond says to him. The bushels of orchids decorating the mantelpiece behind him made him look like a king, crowned in a wreath of leaves and blooming petals. “And, of course, I did not hire you for your sparkling personality.”

Elrond is smiling, so Erestor knows that this is a joke. He makes an effort to laugh a little.

“But,” Elrond continues, “I would very much appreciate it if you did not pick fights with my security.”

Erestor purses his lips. “Ah,” he says. “That Glorfindel told you, then.”

“He didn’t need to. Half the building heard. Poor Melpomaen came running to me, worried that someone had been killed.”

At this, Erestor snorts. “Nonsense. If an intruder were to murder anyone, it would be unlikely there would be so much noise. It would call too much attention to it, and pose too much risk.”

Elrond laughs again, and Erestor tries to laugh with him, though he’s not quite joking.

With one of his faded hands, he offers Erestor a glass filled with the same sort of whiskey his father liked. Smokey and a little sharper than most, with just enough of an edge to make him wince as he downed it in one.

This was becoming too much of a habit. Elrond often invited Erestor to share a drink with him at the end of the day, and before long - if Erestor allowed for it to continue this long, which he was dangerously close to wanting - Elrond might begin to consider them friends.

“Glorfindel is a good man.”

“He has the temper of a sawn-off shotgun.” Erestor hands over his glass, which Elrond happily refills. Elrond raises his eyebrow, not half because Erestor gulps down the freshly-refilled whiskey and proffers it a third time. Erestor shrugs and smacks his lips. “He’s fun to tease, at the very least, even if his reactions are… somewhat erratic, at times.”

“He’s been through a lot. You should try being nice to him, for once.”

Erestor snorts. “Sure. I’ll invite him out for dinner, while I’m at it. Tell him not to worry about the bill.”

He smirks at Elrond’s poor attempt at a disapproving look. His father was never much good at those either. But where Elrond failed because his mouth was so naturally set into a smile, his father failed because it was so unused to moving at all.

Elrond finishes his own drink and, much to Erestor’s disappointment, stows away the bottle back under his desk. “He’s a good man,” he says again. “I would trust him with my life. He’s family.”

He’s looking at the words on his hands as he says this. Erestor looks into his glass, swirling around the dregs and pretending he doesn’t notice.

“Families are supposed to fight,” Erestor says.

Finally, Elrond looks up. “You’re apart of this family, too. So, no more squabbling or I’ll have to send you both to bed without any supper.”

“But dad,” Erestor says, spurred on by the liquid confidence now coursing through his veins, “the Prince of Mirkwood has invited me to a party this weekend.”

The joke sounds strange in his dry tone, and it feels a little dusty on his tongue. There’s a moment where he immediately regrets everything, wondering if he’d overstepped some boundary that forbade making jokes about teenage rebellion. But then Elrond laughs, and Erestor can breathe again.

“Very funny,” he says, and salutes him with his empty glass. “Now, run along home. It’s past your bedtime and you have work tomorrow.”

He knew when he was being kicked out; hell, he’d done it enough himself, and in far cruder ways, to recognise it. Elrond was always speaking of his children, though Erestor had yet to meet them. They had been staying with their grandparents across the country, and were due back early tomorrow morning. Elrond had been wringing his scarred hands in anticipation for the past two days.

Erestor had been offered a room in Elrond’s house, But he had (somewhat) respectfully declined. It was bad enough sharing a workspace with more than his cat, let alone an entire building.

Not that it was likely he would bump into any unsavoury characters: Elrond’s mansion was a veritable labyrinth of corridors, and - while the distant hum of life was a constant threat of interruption, in his first three weeks he had only actually come across a notable few: or at least a few that he bothered to remember, for one reason or another.

There was Captain Glorfindel, of course. He goes without saying. Erestor was rather disappointed to find out that the beautiful (if not incredibly outrageous, and somewhat intimidating) armour was not his everyday wear: the presence of a royal visitor had demanded it of him, Erestor later found out, and one who was still living somewhere amongst the many rooms of Elrond’s household.

Perhaps a good thing, too, since his gauntlets had left quite the farewell on his cheek.

Then there was Lindir, Elrond’s primary attendant. Old money often came with those such fancies. They sometimes passed each other on the way to Elrond’s quarters, Lindir always armed with a practised smile that Erestor didn’t quite trust. It was too bright to be genuine, too toothy to be graced with any such sincerity. He was one to watch.

Melpomaen was another Erestor was still deciding on. This was mostly because Erestor - even though one of his  own jobs was to see that the right people got paid the right amount - had no clue what they actually _did_. He had sometimes seen them in the kitchens, chopping various vegetables, and for a good week or so Erestor had assumed that they were some sort of kitchen assistant.

All was well, until the next day when Melpomaen was pottering around the garden, arm-in-arm with the gardener, plump face shadowed by an extravagantly floppy hat.

A day after that, they were dusting underneath the picture frames, then grooming the horses in the stables, then plucking a mandolin on the stage besides Lindir during one of the many evening events that had come and gone. They were an enigma, painted from head to foot in the offcuts of conversations and first words.

He had seen Santiel in the gardens, and heard her name from Narylfiel in the kitchens, who couldn’t seem to speak of much else. He made a special effort to get along with Narylfiel: she made excellent desserts, and he always made sure to befriend the cook regardless, as he had a habit of growing peckish late at night and free access to the kitchens at any hour tended to be a perk of the friendship. Narylfiel was nice (if not a little skittish at times), and she appreciated both the company and the fresh ear upon which to wax poetic about Santiel, which made their symbiotic relationship all the more easy.

“You look tired.” The first words that meet Erestor when he arrives in the kitchens, accompanied with a teasing laugh. Narylfiel slides a plate of fruit and leftover pastries that she had been saving for him across the countertop. Erestor smothers his scowl with a custard tart as soon as it skid into range.

“I feel tired,” he says to her. He takes another bite; it’s saccharine sweet, sprinkled with a little too much cinnamon - clearly the rejects from whatever feast Narylfiel had cooked earlier in the day, but he appreciates it nonetheless. It’s no whiskey, but it will do.

Narylfiel hums in that way Erestor, in his short time in her company, has noticed her to do - soft and more than a little apprehensive, as though she never quite knows how to respond sometimes but likes to be comforting, regardless. She turns away from him, smiling at the flakes of pastry stuck along the lines of his grimace. Wordlessly, she begins to fill a kettle with water, setting it on the stove to boil while she fiddles with some teacups that her thick fingers made look all the more delicate.

She pushes Erestor a cup of tea on a small platter; he’s not sure exactly what kind just from the smell, but he can pick up notes of ginger and honey as he brings the cup to his lips.

“For the whiskey,” she tells him when the cup returns to the platter, emptied. She refills it with a wink, and Erestor watches, feeling the earlier alcohol settle in a haze around his head, as the flecks of tea dance upon the water’s crystalline surface. “Elrond never stints.”

“It’s good whiskey,” Erestor replies with a shrug. “I didn’t know you drank.”

“I try my best not to.” Narylfiel pulls a face. “I don’t like how I am while drunk, but occasionally I drink a little, if nothing more than to take of the edge.”

Erestor laughs and raises his teacup with the enthusiasm of a dwarf with a flagon of ale. “I’ll drink to that,” he says. He burns his tongue on the next sip, but with the whiskey still coursing through his bloodstream, he hardly feels the warmth.

He watches Narylfiel bite her lip. She’s not particularly pretty, he thinks, but he was never much one for women anyway. Her eyes seem a little too small, lips a little too thick, and her nose looks like it had been broken more than once in the past, set askew by unpractised hands. But her smile is nice, Erestor can recognise that much at the very least. Absentmindedly, as he nurses his second cup of tea, he wonders if Narylfiel has any of Santiel’s words on her skin, and - if so - why she spent her time hiding in the kitchen, watching Santiel with wide eyes through the window.

He’s about to ask, but Narylfiel speaks first.

“I heard you got into another fight with the Captain.” She sounds disappointed in him; Erestor doesn’t like that.

He pushes away his tea with a huff. “It was his fault,” he snaps, despite the fact he hardly believes that. The whiskey has already taken over his tongue.

Narylfiel looks at him cautiously, clears her throat with a delicate cough. “You… occasionally antagonise him. Elrond told me about what happened with Captain Glorfindel’s reports. He shouldn’t have come for you like that, but…” she trails off under Erestor’s withering gaze.

Erestor purses his lips. “I know,” he says after staying quiet for far too long, “I know.” He takes a long, slow sip of his tea, feeling the ginger start to fight back against the clouds of whiskey in his head. “I’m not going to stop; I still hate him. But… I’ll try not to push it too far.”

Narylfiel reaches out and pats his hand. She’s smiling again, and Erestor much prefers it when she smiles. When she’s upset she looks too much like a wounded dog, and - much like her smiles - it’s contagious.

“I figured that,” she says. She refills his tea for a final time. “But it’s a start, at the very least.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i should preface this entire story by telling you i have no idea where this is heading. plotwise? eh. characterwise? who knows! but hey, im enjoying writing it because i havent written anything in a while, so that's that.

**Author's Note:**

> Oneshot that I carried on writing because I hate myself. 
> 
> I'm not going to lie, this is 90% a modern au and 10% 'if I can't write Glorfindel in no clothes at all, then I'm going to give him pretty armour and a sword'. Maybe he just likes LARPing. Or maybe I'm just making excuses for my own continuity errors.
> 
> I guess we'll never know.
> 
> Also is it obvious that I'm a sucker for the whole enemies-to-lovers trope? No? Good. Nobody can know my weakness.
> 
> Come yell at me at queerglorfindel.tumblr.com


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